


Full of Grace

by AddyPlantagenet



Series: The Hastings Chronicles [1]
Category: Bridgerton (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29424465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AddyPlantagenet/pseuds/AddyPlantagenet
Summary: Canon up until the end of Episode 7. Just my idea of what would have happened if I had written the show. Could end up being a series. Who knows.This an AU scenario that takes place after the concert where Daphne gets her period 1x07.
Relationships: Daphne Bridgerton/Simon Basset, Simon Basset & Daphne Bridgerton
Series: The Hastings Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161536
Comments: 34
Kudos: 149





	Full of Grace

Full of Grace

_If all of the grace and all of the courage come and lift me from this place,_

_I know I can love you much better than this._

_Full of grace, full of grace, my love._

  * _Sarah McLachlan (Full of Grace)_



_This takes place after the concert where Daphne gets her period 1x07_

_I can’t leave her._ It’s the single thought that keeps rolling around in his head. He watches her sleep from his vigil in his chair. If he leans forward and reaches out he is close enough to take her hand. He stays where he is. He can’t leave the room, he can’t leave her there alone. Not when he can see the tears still drying on her cheeks, not when he can still hear her sobs, can still remember the stricken look on her face before she ran behind the curtain. Reaching for her is equally impossible. He is not a forgiving person by nature and the memory of her actions is still galling.

There are times he knows for sure that something in him is damaged. That despite his best efforts, something of his father has managed to plant itself in him. There is an insidious voice whispering to him that he would always have failed her with or without any vow. That he would never have been man enough for her. There is too much weakness in him, too much of that Basset coldness in his blood. There has to be something wrong with him. It’s the only way he can explain how he was able to stay in that chair in their box and listen to her soul wrenching sobs. The only way he can maintain his composure while the woman he loves beyond reason weeps brokenly behind a curtain. Every sound is an indictment against him. His cruelty, his intransigence, his weakness.

She had no right to take what wasn’t offered freely. He knows that. Her duplicity, using her body as a distraction, as bait while she planned her course… it makes him think the worst of her. He’ll never be able to fully express that feeling of having been used, of being tricked. It’s even more galling that she would never have been so bold if not for his dedicated tutelage. In the end he gave her the tools to betray him. And what an apt pupil she’d been. Even knowing the end, the image of her above him, completely bare in the flickering firelight, riding him fearlessly like a carnal Lady Godiva is enough to make him hard. He hates that it does. He hates that she can still move him. That despite everything he wants her under him, over him, around him. He still craves her kisses, her taste her smiles. He still wants to be the one she comes to and confides in. The one she trusts with the questions she is afraid to ask. The one she trusts.

He is honest enough to admit that he has forfeited that right. He knows the truth of himself far more than he is willing to admit to her or to anyone. Words have meaning, and he knew what she’d believed, what she’d understood by him saying her couldn’t give her children. He knew that her ignorance had been a blessing for him, a way for him to enjoy her without having to reveal that deep intractable shame he carries every day. A way for her to still admire him and think him worthy of her, a way for him to maintain the lie of who he was. There are times that he believes he’d rather die than admit to her that he still struggles to speak. There is too much knowledge of him in that confession.

He’d rather let her believe him cruel and implacable and whole, than terrified, lonely and damaged. He’d rather lose her this way than the other. He’d rather face her rage and coldness than her disgust. He doesn’t care that it’s unfair to her. He doesn’t care that once again he is deciding for her and denying her the right to make an educated decision. That once again he is using her ignorance as a shield for him and his fear. He doesn’t care about the hypocrisy of craving her trust while denying her his. He’d rather carve his terms out and refuse to move. It is his right. He is a Duke and her husband. It is not for him to yield to her demands or beg forgiveness.

He believed all this until he saw her watching her stomach in the mirror, peering hopefully at that sleek plane, hoping for a sign. Some indication that her desperate gamble had yielded something. He’d never admit that he’d been watching for the same sign for days. That as days went by without a sign of her courses he’d allowed himself to think of what their child might look like. Whether it would be a boy or a little girl with her mother’s eyes. He crushes those images as soon as they appear but they always return. He blames the fear and stomach roiling anxiety that fill him on her. He lets it fuel his ire against her. But watching her watch herself in that unguarded moment, she looked hopeful for the first time in weeks. Until she saw him of course. He watched the way she snatched her hands behind her back, like a guilty child before her cool mask settled in place. He registered the irony that she cannot even enjoy the possibility of this thing she prayed for her entire life, because of him. How much of her joy must he ruin before she will understand that he is unworthy of her?

Then she is sitting beside him, his perfect Duchess. All beauty, grace and composure hiding a world of bitterness and anger and hope. He knows that there is hope in her still for them. He knows that if she is with child that he will stay, and eventually he will be unable to stay away from her. Their marriage will never be what it was before, that innocence is dead, but it would be more than they have now. Between the music, her protective stillness and the memory of a stolen kiss in a dimly lit room, he found himself reaching for her hand. _Pax._ He couldn’t feel their softness through her gloves, and part of him wanted to strip them off as he used to. She stiffened in surprise at a touch that he knew would always be unexpected now but she didn’t pull away from him. Instead she relaxed, and there was a small smile. A real smile, instead of the bitter or false one he’s seen far too often. Acceptance. Whatever came before, it would still be possible for them to come through this with time. He let out the breath he’d been holding and allowed himself to focus on the orchestra before him, and the possibilities. _It could be a little girl_ he thought. _Girls cannot be heirs. Perhaps we will have all girls, she could have her children and I can keep my vow._

She stiffened abruptly, a gasp escaping her lips. He looked over at her, wondering what could possibly be wrong, but her eyes were fixed on her lap. Her breaths had grown more and more agitated, before her grey blue eyes met his again. They were full of dread, of alarm. Then she was up, disappearing behind the curtains. Part of him wants to follow, he is nearly out of his seat before he remembers that they are fully visible to the audience. Him rushing behind his wife in the middle of an opening movement would surely raise more gossip than they wanted. There were muffled sounds, possibly a door opening and closing, and then he heard her. Deep, full-throated sobs that had his throat clenching and his eyes burning. He didn’t need to be in the room to know what had happened. No baby. No little girls. No marriage. Nothing but loneliness and a lifetime of cursing himself anew for dragging her into this sadness with him. He tried to tell himself that it’s her own fault for forcing him. That she could have spared herself this pain she had simply respected his wishes but he doesn’t have the heart for it. Not with tears flooding his eyes, his chest aching, and the image of three perfect little girls disappearing from his mind like smoke. He wanted to rage and howl. He wanted to rip open those curtains and hold her against him, soak up her tears steal the pain from her.

In the end he stayed where he was until the end of the second piece. When he found her, the tears had gone silent, but they still flowed hot and plentiful down her cheeks. She was utterly still again. He could see bloody napkins in a waste bin, proof of her failure. He couldn’t think what he could possibly say. Any show of sympathy would be taken as a mockery. Any commentary at all would be seen as him triumphing over her. It occurs to him dimly that he’s never really seen her cry before. 

“An answer at last.” She said softly. Her voice was flat. Not angry or bitter but exhausted. “Would you consider waiting until after the season is over to leave?”

“Daphne must we do this now?”

“Why not? There is no time like the present after all.”

He wanted to throw his chair against the wall. He hated that tone in her voice more than anything else. He’d known her to be many things, but never defeated. He found it to be the most intolerable sound in the world. “Yes, I will wait until after the season.” 

“Thank you.” There was a horrible silence and then “Mama has called for her carriage. She will see me back to Hastings house.”

“I will take you back.”

“There is no need.”

“Daphne,”

“I know that you are trying to be kind, but there isn’t a need for that anymore. There is nothing to keep you here anymore, and I can’t pretend tonight.”

He couldn’t speak. There is no woman in the world who can snatch his voice like her. She always managed to tear him apart with her eyes while her words left him helpless. His silence was always so wonderfully effective. He hated seeing the proof of it’s efficacy on her however. Hated watching it bludgeon her hopes and her tenderness until all that was left was her desperate composure and her pride. The door opens and her mother is there. She barely spares him a glance as she bundles her daughter up in her cloak and leads her out. There is blood on the chair where his wife was sitting. He stared at it blindly for what seemed like hours before he pulled himself out his stupor and called for his carriage.

He didn’t go home immediately. For all her sweetness, Violet Bridgerton terrifies him. And she could only be too aware now of how he had failed her daughter. Of how badly she had misjudged him. He went to Will’s and beat the sack of grain until his muscles seized with exhaustion and the urge to sob had passed entirely. Even then, when he got back he couldn’t avoid his mother in law. She paused outside his door as he approached, her eyes sharp but not as hard as he was expecting. He is suddenly keenly aware of his state of undress and how it might appear to her.

“Not drunk at least.” She said before giving a short sigh.

“How is she?” the question was out before he could stop himself.

“She is sleeping at last.”

He wanted to ask her how much she knew, but he was a coward. In the end she simply shook her head, climbed into her carriage and left him outside his house. There was a grim silence to greet him. No one asked why he returned early, no one mentions his Duchess, no one meets his eye, not even Jeffries. Now that he was there he didn’t know what to do with himself. He couldn’t sleep despite his exhaustion. He was too distracted to work. His curiosity won out. He went to her room and told himself that he wanted to verify that she was indeed resting. Once he was there, he couldn’t leave so he pulled the side chair closer to the bed, and sat.

That was hours ago. The moon shines directly into the room bathing her in a silvery blue light. She was indeed asleep, curled up on her side. Now he watches her in a way he’s never allowed himself. Watches her hair across her pillow in a single braid. Her arms are curled around something. It takes him a moment to realize that she is resting her head on one of his shirts.

It’s in that moment he realizes that for all his words, he isn’t leaving her. He can’t. Not when all he wants is to crawl into that bed with her and throw that damned shirt onto the ground. He doesn’t know if she’d let him. Couldn’t imagine that she would. How would that help in any event? Once he felt her body against his he’d only want one thing. And his sweet Daphne is always only too eager. And that’s the crux of his problem. She will always be _his Daphne_. His love, his best friend, his Duchess. She is his match, in more ways than one. But while he hates her actions, he knows that they are equal in that respect as well. He knows that he can’t condemn her and ignore his part.

_I can’t leave her. I don’t want to._

That’s the truth at last. He doesn’t want to walk away. He doesn’t want to go back to loneliness and aimlessness and faceless women. He wants to be home. For he that he can either be honorable or brave. He knows well enough that he cannot manage both. Honor would have been walking away to begin with. Honor would have been not kissing her in that garden. Honor would have been telling her the truth of himself and his vow and allowing her to decide how much of him she’d accept. No he’s not honorable or fair or well intentioned. But perhaps if he digs deep enough he can find the stubbornness to fight for the life he wants despite the terror invoked by the required exposure. The courage to do what needs to be done and give her the answers that she deserves. There would be fear, but perhaps on the other side there would be a kind of freedom as well.


End file.
